⊕  Creative Warm-up Exercises for Designers

Take a simple but incomplete drawing and finish it in a logical or pleasing way so that the outline is continuous

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Mix two different elements to create a new design,

similar to the same way you would take

two ingredients to combine in a dish of food.

An extension of the "Closure" exercise, this resource was originally created by the National Association for Gifted and Talented Children (UK) and had a 'mark scheme' to give a snapshot of students' creative ability.  Much of interest may also be gained from in-class peer review, ranking and discussion to explore and clarify what people understand by the term 'creativity'.

RULES

Using the set of seven given symbols printed on one side of a piece of A4 paper you are bound only by these three simple rules to produce a creative piece of work: 

1) You must use/incorporate all seven symbols on the page to create an original and imaginative  piece of work. 

2) You must use all fifteen minutes but not a second more.

3) You must give your work a title.

There are no further rules. No questions are allowed. No further advice will be given - what happens now is entirely down to you!

NB - The job of the administrator of this test is simple but vital: Give out the papers face down, read the rules, do not answer any questions about the test or give any prompts, time the test, collect the papers in. If any student asks questions about the test ask them to listen very carefully and then re-read the three rules verbatim, then start the test.

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• Open "TYPOGRAPHY BASICS" here

EXERCISE 1:

Step 1: Identify the rules that govern the first four letters (Height to width ratio, thickness and style of lines, seriphs, proportions, etc.)

Step 2: Construct the next four letters in the alphabet following the rules identified, make sure you also use whatever guidelines are necessary.

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EXERCISE 2:

Step 1: Select a typeface from above and identify the rules that make the letters consistent with each other.

Step 2: Write out your full name using the same rules. Use construction lines as in Exercise 1 above

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The main methods of manufacturing and fabricating 3D forms from materials processed into flat forms may be divided into the following categories:

Bend/Roll,  Fold/Crease,  Stack/Layer,  (Extrude),  Slot together,  Stuff/Inflate. (read more)

1) 3D to Flat Take a 3D product that has been formed from flat shapes or profiles. Imagine what those flat shapes were that were then formed into 3D products. Imagine taking the pieces apart and then unfolding, separating, deflating, and flattening them out. Draw out what you think the separate flat shapes look like as accurately as you can.

2) Flat to 3D  Examine a given set of flat components along with their assembly instructions. Imagine and draw the 3D form that you think they will create.

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Convert Data into a suitable graphic forms that can be understood in a single glance and has impact. 

Look at these beauties for example from the website "INFORMATION IS BEAUTIFUL"!

•  Creative Bloq guide to infographics

•  Fritz Khan - The Godfather of Infographics

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Re-imagine familiar products and objects in the style of a given design movement or individual designer.

(Click for Exemplar Work)

Things to re-imagine:

A kettle, lawnmower, pencil case, table/desk/chair, condiment set, coffee machine, microwave, sofa, jacket, pendant/brooch, tablet/laptop etc etc

Suggested Designers and Movements to use:

• Arts and Crafts
• Art Deco
• De Stijl
• Modernism
• Post-modernism
• Futurism
• Bauhaus
• Alessi
• Zaha Hadid
• Margaret Calvert
• Malika Favre
• Armi Ratia
• Jingh Zhang
• Charlotte Perriand
• Phillipe Starck
• Memphis
• Space Age
• Ancient Egyptian
• Harry Beck
• Marcel Breuer
• Coco Chanel
• Norman Foster
• Sir Alec Issigonis
• William Morris
• Alexander McQueen
• Mary Quant
• Louis Comfort Tiffany
• Raymond Templer
• Marcel Breuer
• Gerrit Reitveld
• Charles Rennie Macintosh
• Aldo Rossi
• Ettore Sottsass
• Philippe Starck
• Vivienne Westwood

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Join two very different objects or materials- use drawings to explain how you would join them together

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A Spork is a combination of a spoon and a fork - two similar tools reduced to one with increased functionality.

What other objects with related functions could be combined together to make one object with two or more uses?

Where are the opportunities for increasing functionality?

Draw your design, show how it would be used, and label all details of function, forces, materials, and manufacture.

Areas of design to consider:

• Kitchenware
• Camping
• Stationery
• Hobbies
• Cycling
• Tools
• Survival
• Personal Security

HOWEVER - it is important to balance usability with function: At what point does increasing functionality make a product unusable..?

This spork...or this Swiss-Army Tool?

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Take a set of four objects. Give one or all of them a meaningful role in a short story. Draw a scene from the story in which the objects feature. 

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Set 1 - Say which is the odd one out, and justify why.

Set 2

Set 3

Take any three given objects that have related functions and purposes.

1. State which one you think could be the odd-one out
2. Say exactly why and justify your decision with a persuasive argument

Consider form, function(s), materials, manufacturing, structure, components, forces and movement, assembly, how it's used, who uses it, colour, etc.

"The Five Coatpegs" 

Having created your own rules for organising three similar objects you can see that there are many ways of looking at organising and arranging sub-groups of things depending on their shared qualities. For instance - 'Breeds of Dogs'' could be grouped together or ranked in order according to  Size, Colour, Alphabetically, Speed, Country of origin, Longevity, etc. The concept that there are at least five ways to organise a group of objects is referred to as "The Five Coatpegs" Rule

EXTENSION EXERCISE:

A simple extension exercise based on this is to take your pencil case, empty out the contents, find a rule to organise the contents by and arrange a composition with them according to your rule. Now take a photograph, mix them up and think of another rule that they could be organised by. Do this FIVE times. Show your compositions to a partner to see if they can work out what the organisational rules you used were.

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Step 1: Take any reasonably complex image and trace over the spaces between objects.

Step 2: Identify the rules that govern the creation of the shape, then use those rules to draw two more shapes that follow the same rules so that you create a family of three related shapes.

Step 3: Use any of the three shapes to create a pattern by repeating, rotating scaling, inverting, mirroring, overlapping, contouring, interlinking, etc

(Read more here)

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Also see: Negative Space in Design-

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Take an image of an unusual or innovative product and in a 100 word blog post or magazine product launch article, identify the problem it is trying to solve and explain why it is such a good solution.

(Use all the skills you have learnt in Persuasive Writing) 

What is it?   

What does it do?   

How does it do it?

STARTER:

1) What is it?

Mason Jar : A glass jar with a lid fixed and sealed with a toggle clamp

2) What does it do?

Closes and temporarily seals food from the atmosphere and germs to help preserve it until use

3) How does it do it?

.........

Click on images for pdf worksheets 

All products have been designed, engineered and manufactured to perform in specific ways.

Take a device, object or product, and describe how it works in as much detail as possible leaving no detail out, however small. Explain how the materials have been chosen for specific properties, and how forces work in mechanisms. (Every detail of the product has been designed to afford the user a specific function)

Use every specific technical and scientific terms needed.

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An affordance is a use that an object can be put to. A steel headed hammer affords you the ability to drive nails into wood. That is the affordance that it has been designed for.

A primary affordance refers to the function(s) for which the product was designed.

A secondary affordance is the unintended use for which a product could also be used. e.g. Most fire extinguishers spend many more hours being used (illegally!) as a doorstop because of their weight, rather than fighting fires.

How many other uses could you put a product to? Consider it's properties - shape, size, weight, colour, texture, etc.

(People may have encountered this in a very basic form before in the old creativity exercise - 100 Uses for a Brick, and the slightly more upsetting book - '101 Uses for a Dead Cat')

Y7 Activity: Alternative Use

Read more:  Affordances & Signifiers, with Donald A. Norman

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Take a partial set of symbols or pictograms, identify the rules that govern their creation and apply the rules to a further five symbols that would fit into the same family of design

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1. Carefully analyse and examine the alphabet printed in Goudy typeface above*
2. Identify the rules that the letters follow, some obvious and some subtle
3. Now create a range of different designs for a brand new 27th letter of the alphabet
4. Decide on the best looking letter and construct it carefully in the space between 'S' and 'T'

It may be helpful to print off the sheet and use tracing paper to trace over parts of different letters and combine them in new and interesting ways.

(You may give your letter a new name and a new sound!)

*or select another typeface with a different level of challenge!

Draw a familiar item in as much detail as possible from memory 

• My front door
• The last book I read / My favourite book
• My favourite possession
• The last outfit I wore
• The best chair in the house
• The clock in my home
• My TV remote control
• The Oven, or Hob, or Cooker, or Microwave in my kitchen

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